As the physical world has become increasingly inaccessible as a result of lockdowns announced in various countries, people have availed themselves of the virtual world. Numerous existing and novel applications have seen a significant increase in traffic as users find themselves seeking mental sustenance. Indeed, while applications such as HouseParty, Zoom, WhatsApp, and Netflix have addressed these needs and desires, other software has been released that may directly address the coronavirus pandemic.
Salcit Technologies is an India-based startup that has released an application that can be downloaded to one’s smartphone and that purportedly provides on demand respiratory assessment during early stages of the coronavirus disease. The technology implements audiometric evaluation of coughing, wheezing, breathing and crackling sounds to determine whether the sound is attributable to the patient’s airways, parenchyma, or pleura of the lungs. The system allows patients to remotely perform these assessments using only the speaker on their smartphone. In addition, this at-home assessment frees up doctors and other medical personnel who would normally diagnose these patients in-person or via other virtual healthcare services, such as Teladoc. The application also provides tracking of the patient’s symptoms and therefore, disease progress.
Salcit Technologies was granted an Indian Patent, No. 308156, for this invention, as well as, an International Patent Cooperation Treaty Application, Publication No. WO2019116381. The disclosure, titled “Method and System for Analyzing Risk Associated with Respiratory Sounds,” describes assigning a “risk category” to respiratory sound signals captured by an acoustic sensor, that is, the microphone of one’s device. In this system and method, the patient also inputs information related to their symptoms. Interestingly, while the invention is likely to prove useful for diagnosing and tracking coronavirus symptoms, the patent was granted in India in December 2017 and published worldwide June 2019.
Other applications have been developed to assist in health tracking. Two such apps, Coviguard and Covicare, track health statistics of individuals and also provide area-wide spread of the coronavirus. Similarly, another app, aptly called “Covid Symptom Tracker” helps people track symptoms related to coronavirus. This application in turn takes into account the rate at which the virus is spreading in a user’s area, high-risk areas, high-risk individuals, and other related analytics, thereby curbing the spread of the virus. Moreover, other technology companies have taken additional steps to slow the pandemic. As one example, together with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the White House coronavirus task force, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Apple launched a COVID-19 website and application that includes both information related to the disease as well as a screening tool.
While, for now, these tools are provided by way of free applications that can be downloaded directly to one’s smartphone, other coronavirus-related innovation may be subject to patent protection. This highlights a tension within the patent system, which simultaneously provides incentive for research and development while disallowing the fruits of that innovation to be publicly enjoyed (at least for the term of the patent). When an inventor is granted a patent, they are provided a twenty-year term during which they may exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling, or importing into the United States the invention claimed in the patent. Thus, arguably, if one were to invent a cure, a vaccine, method of diagnosing, or other helpful tool in the fight against coronavirus, this inventor could receive a patent and prevent others from benefiting from the invention. These concerns could potentially be addressed through a compulsory licensing scheme, adopted in other countries (not the United States), under which patents related to treating, diagnosing, or preventing the novel coronavirus present an exception to this rule.